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UNQUESTIONABLY
STRANGE FACTS!
The following nuggets, drawn
from various sources, are unquestionably strange, weird, bizarre,
trivial, outlandish and, occasionally, even a little upsetting.
They’re also all true. We offer them as a possibility for a fun
(or serious) offbeat inspiration or ingredient in one or more of
your upcoming promotions. Your counselor can help you select
appropriate or related products.
- In France, it’s
illegal to name, or even address, any pig as Napoleon.
No idea if the same law applies to naming one Jerry
Lewis.
- Hedgehogs’ hearts beat
an average of 300 times a minute.
- Roughly 33% of women in
America lie about their weight. Eighty-five percent
currently wear the wrong bra size. (A correlation
here….?)
- Humans listen at 125 to
250 words per minute, but we think at 1,000 to 3,000.
- Armadillos always have
four babies at a time, all of the same sex.
- The 1968 megahit,
“Mony Mony” was inspired by a huge blinking Mutual
Of New York (MONY… get it?) neon sign Shondells
leader Tommy James saw from his hotel room.
- The tallest school
building in the Western world is the University of
Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning at 42 stories.
- On an average day,
133,932,656 Americans eat out. Of those folks,
16,300,000 go to McDonald’s.
- Now the really deep
stuff: “Underground” is the only English word that
begins and ends with “und.”
- Two-thirds of the
world’s eggplant is grown in New Jersey. Quite the
claim …
- Honey is the only food
that doesn’t spoil.
- Inventors aren’t
always the last word, part 12: Alexander Graham Bell
believed the best way to answer the phone was
“Ahoy!”
- In Montana, men are
forbidden from appearing in public wearing any kind of
strapless gown … not even paired with those
to-die-for Manolo Blaniks.
- The cigarette lighter
was invented before the matchbook.
- Intelligent people’s
hair has a higher zinc and copper content.
- Pennsylvania was the
first of the original 13 colonies to legalize
witchcraft. (Some in Harrisburg may argue that it’s
still being practiced.)
- Loch Ness, home of the
famous monster, is twice as deep as the North Sea and
can hold the earth’s population three times over.
- A dogmobile – a
carriage powered by two dogs – was patented in 1870.
- The warning “Do not
insert into any body orifice” actually appeared on
the packaging for a curling iron.
- The word “checkmate”
derives from the Persian “Shah mat,” which means
“The king is dead.”
- In an average day, 209
bankruptcy filings are made.
- More babies are
conceived in December than any other month.
- A few years ago, a
49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker became so
engrossed in his jogging he ran off a cliff.
- Major shock: 90% of New
York cabdrivers are recently arrived immigrants.
- If they can’t manage
to locate any food, ribbon worms will often turn to
self-cannibalism.
- Seventy-four percent of
teenagers who wear Calvin Klein-logoed clothing
consider themselves overweight, while only 17% of
those who wear Tommy Hilfiger do.
- The full name for Los
Angeles is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los
Angeles de Porciuncula. But all that wouldn’t fit on
the sign above city hall.
- “Hang On Sloopy” is
the official rock song of Ohio.
- OK; you’ve probably
heard many variants. This is, reportedly, the official
skinny on statues of people on horses: If both the
horses’ front legs are in the air, the person died
in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air,
the person died from wounds received in battle. If the
horse has all four feet on the ground, the rider died
of natural causes. If the horse has both back legs in
the air, God only knows.
- Earth travels around the
sun at about 67,000 miles an hour.
- Sir Issac Newton was an
ordained priest in the Church of England.
- Giving dogs chocolate
could actually be fatal to them; theobromine, an
ingrediant, stimulates the cardiac muscle.
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